


Too Sick to Pray

by JoeLawson



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Horror, M/M, Presumed Dead, Undead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-31
Updated: 2011-10-31
Packaged: 2017-10-25 03:08:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoeLawson/pseuds/JoeLawson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was no funeral, because there was no body, or maybe not yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Sick to Pray

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not usually one for Halloween, but this year I caught the bug and since a good friend of mine already did the [**zombie thing**](http://cattraine.livejournal.com/480462.html), I decided to try my hand at vampires. Uhm. Or something that might be vampires. I might've gone a little overboard with the monster factor. *g*
> 
>  **Author's Notes 2 (WARNING: potential fic spoilers):** All right, I'm gonna ask you all to suspend your disbelief for a bit and accept that Steve has a basement, k? Seaside property or not. Just go with it. If you can't, you might want to skip this story, it'll give you hiccups. ;)
> 
> Also, the plan was to end this on a really gory, violent note, but, well. Not so much. Those of you who prefer an ambiguous ending, don't read the epilogue, k?

>   
> _don't call the doctor  
>  I'm gonna get better  
> don't run for the priest  
> I'm gonna find some faith  
> just because I burned my bible, baby,  
> it don't mean I'm too sick to pray_
> 
> "[Too Sick to Pray](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6VbjVaTpLI)" by Alabama 3

 

They came when the sun turned black, an eclipse that took the light, took the warmth, and brought death from the water and death from the sky. They killed with tooth and claw, took whoever caught their fancy. For seven days, they lived like kings and queens. They feasted. They played. They raped and fucked and bred.

The rivers and gullies ran red with blood, the streets turned slick and sticky with gore. There was no break and no reprieve, because they owned the darkness and the darkness was everywhere. Artificial light didn't bother them. Without the sun there to drive them back, they ruled. This was their right; this was what they had waited for, centuries of hiding and patience paying off at last. They made music with human instruments, created a symphony of screams and cries that filled the whole world.

The only reason Steve made it out alive was that he happened to be on the mainland, taking part in a training exercise, when the first wave hit. The Navy couldn't get him to the front lines before it became clear there was nothing they could do but hunker down and outwait the enemy while they tried to develop a feasible strategy, and so Steve was forced to sit out what would later be called the Wild Hunt in a bunker in north California, guarding an eclectic gathering of politicians, medical personnel, and assorted bigwigs. It took everything he had not to go AWOL. It helped that the president had declared martial law, which made desertion an automatic death sentence. Danny would dig him up and kill him again if he got himself killed like that, so Steve shoved everything down, deep down, buried Steve under Lt. Commander McGarrett and followed orders.

The only reason Chin and Kono made it out alive was that Chin happened to get kicked down a flight of stairs two hours after the first Honolulu victim had died in a spray of blood at the Waikiki Beach Resort. He hit his head hard enough to make _Kono_ see stars and because Kono was a woman who had her priorities straight, she immediately slid down the banister, shot something toothy and yellow-eyed in the face before it could eat Chin's lips, and lugged her dazed and bleeding cousin out of there. This was why the two of them ended up at the Kapi'olani Medical Center and spent the rest of the Wild Hunt under siege.

The only reason Danny made it-

Well.

Danny didn't.

* * *

There was no funeral, because there was no body, or maybe not yet. Seven weeks after the Hunt, two weeks after the last sighting of one of Them, and the search and destroy teams still found human parts in the most unlikely places and sometimes things that were much worse. A lot of people had been maimed so badly their lives were never going to be the same, had lost limbs, eyes, faces, often enough their sanity. Many had survived being raped or bitten or sliced open only to die later of a mysterious disease, a fever that burned them out as their bodies tried to change into something different, something that looked a little like Them. A few did change. It was a slow, painful process.

The changelings were put down. This was a war now.

Occasionally, missing persons resurfaced from distant hidey-holes. Kono in particular clung to the belief that this was going to happen with Danny - that one day Danny and Grace would come walking back into town, thin and ragged, but alive. Chin wasn't quite so optimistic, but he didn't voice his doubts, not with Kono clinging to this fading hope with all she had. Not with Steve, hollow-eyed and brittle, combing the area for any sign of his partner over and over again.

In the end, it was Chin who found Grace. He hadn't even been looking. He'd followed Steve with the intention to drag him back home to rest or, barring that, make him eat something before he climbed the Ko'olau mountain range on an empty stomach. The man had become obsessed with his mission to find Danny. He'd resigned from the Navy as soon as they'd let him and had spent every day since systematically checking out every place on O'ahu Danny had ever visited, passed by, seen, or mentioned. The caves were the last point on a very long list. After that, he'd probably start doing a grid search.

"You need to eat, Steve," Chin said patiently for the nth time, shoving a sandwich at his friend.

"I've eaten."

Chin rolled his eyes. "Power bars don't count."

Steve grunted and disappeared into the back of his truck to dig through his equipment. This was why he didn't hear the rustling in the bushes that made Chin switch from aggravation to red alert in 0.2 seconds. This was why he wasn't the first one to spot a corner of a pink nightshirt and the dirty, mud-caked shape of a kid-sized bunny slipper a little lower.

"Steve," Chin whispered, and that brought Steve to his side in an instant, gun up and ready to fight.

They moved in fast and silent, ready for anything, because only a few days before, one of the few remaining HPD officers had been taken down by a changeling boy no more than five or six years old. It had taken four men to wrench the snarling kid off the man, and it had taken most of its victim's guts with it when it was forced away. It had still been chewing when Steve had put his gun to the dark-haired little head and pulled the trigger.

This wasn't a changeling though.

It was Grace.

* * *

Grace didn't talk.

At all.

The doctors shrugged, used to this kind of thing by then, told the remains of Hawaii 5-0 that she'd get over it or she wouldn't – if they could locate a therapist who wasn't suffering from PTSD too badly, that might help, but there were so many traumatized children out there she'd have to wait a long time before anybody would be able to see her. Grace couldn't be a priority, because she'd been lucky. Physically, she was fine. She should've been starving and filthy, but she hadn't lost all that much weight and while her one remaining slipper and her nightshirt were dirty, the rest of her was comparatively clean and her hair had been combed and braided recently. She was unharmed except for a few scratches that had likely been the result of walking down the mountain and a broken finger that had been splinted and was almost completely healed. The bandage that had been used to hold the wooden splint in place looked like it had been blue once. Danny had worn a blue shirt the night everything had gone to shit.

From what they'd been able to piece together, they knew Danny had made his way across the city to Stan's mansion before the Wild Hunt had been in full swing. He'd been in time to save Grace, had killed two of Them before they could get to her. Rachel had already been dead (or so they hoped, because she'd been so mangled they almost hadn't recognized her, fucked to death halfway up the stairs) and Stan had been strewn over most of the entrance hall. They knew Danny had tried to reach Queen's Medical, because he'd saved half a dozen people on his way there that they knew of, but by that point the hospital had been overrun and become a slaughterhouse. After that, Danny's trail had gotten lost in the chaos of the Hunt.

How father and daughter had gotten up into the Ko'olau was anybody's guess. Maybe Danny had stolen a car. Maybe they'd walked. The only thing none of them doubted was that Danny had gotten Grace up to the caves and somehow, God knew how, he'd kept her fed and clean and safe. But he hadn't hiked down the mountain with her when the time had come, hadn't contacted any of them, and that didn't bode well.

Steve spent most of the day trying to get Grace to tell him what had happened to Danny, growing more and more desperate when it became clear she wasn't going to talk to him or anybody. He tried so hard to be patient and gentle, fought down the overwhelming urge to shake the story out of her. He coaxed. He made promises he didn't know if he could keep. He begged.

Grace just sat hugging her knees and stared at the wall. Sometimes, she cried big, silent tears, and that usually made Steve back off for a bit, made him hug her and rock her, made his own eyes fill up with tears he refused to let fall. Tears were for the dead. Danny wasn't dead. Steve wasn't going to cry for him.

For an awfully long time, Grace didn't react to Steve's attempts to comfort her. He wasn't sure at first if she even recognized him, but every time a doctor or nurse tried to separate them, she'd wrap her thin little fingers around one of Steve's and held on for dear life. He decided that was a good sign. When she leaned into his embrace for the first time, he closed his eyes and offered a silent thank you. She'd be all right. Somehow, he'd make it so.

The doctor released Grace into Steve's care eventually. The hospital was still crammed with patients, the rooms overcrowded, the hallways lined with extra beds and gurneys. There simply was no room for an uninjured little girl and her heavily armed escort. Nobody was happy to have Steve around lately, probably because he seemed so frayed around the edges, too close to insanity for people's peace of mind. Too dangerous. The governor had stopped trying to send his task force leader anywhere, just let him roam the island in search of a partner everyone knew had to be long dead. He hadn't relieved him of his duty mainly because Steve hadn't done anything to warrant that step yet and because the governor, too, had family missing. Also, Steve had personally taken down a dozen of Them that had been hiding in the sewers under the Palace and he had no qualms putting down changelings. In other words, Steve, even this wounded, terrifying version of him, was useful.

"She reeks of them," a woman hissed when the team passed her by in the waiting area, and she spat at Grace. "She's _tainted_."

Grace had been walking between Steve and Chin, Kono following behind. Her small hand was cradled in Steve's big one, Chin's fingers carefully cupping her shoulder. When the woman spat at her, she shrank back, trying to hide behind Steve who had twisted instinctively so the wad of spit smacked against his cargos instead of hitting Gracie. He wasn't even aware that he'd pulled his gun until every sound around them died and he realized the barrel was pressed against the woman's forehead and his finger caressing the trigger.

"Steve," Kono said quietly. "Don't. She's _hehena_."

There was no doubt she was. She was a young woman, but her hair had gone shock white and her eyes were empty, disconnected, except for that manic glint of madness beneath the surface. She grinned up at Steve and leaned against his gun like a cat asking to be petted.

"Blow my brains out, boom boom boom," she crooned. "Make it all go away. She still stinks of them. Changeling girl. _Changeling_ girl!"

Steve cocked his head, considering her. Right then, he didn't look all that sane either.

Chin cleared his throat, carefully. "Steve."

"What?"

Chin made sure to sound as disapproving as humanly possible. He might've been channeling ancient Auntie 'Olina in his desperation. "You really want Grace to watch this?"

Steve didn't blink. "She's seen worse."

Kono shifted behind them, ready to grab Grace and cover her eyes if necessary. "You gonna tell that to Danny, too, boss?"

She'd said the magical word. The D word. Steve's throat clicked when he swallowed heavily. He licked his lips then gently engaged the safety and holstered his weapon.

"Let's get out of here," he muttered, and turned away from the crazy woman, much to the relief of everybody watching.

Her cries of _Changeling girl! Changeling girl!_ followed them all the way out to the parking lot.

* * *

Steve was going to take Grace home with him. He was. He wanted to, wanted to keep her close, make sure she was safe. She was the closest he could get to Danny, the only connection he had to the man who'd been his entire world. Kono and Chin knew that, but they still didn't let him keep Gracie.

"Your house is right next to the water, boss," Kono reminded him, like he was an idiot. "What if some of them are still hiding out there? They were last seen in your neighborhood. It's too dangerous."

"I've been sleeping in that house for the past three weeks," Steve snapped, annoyed. "If they wanted to get me, they could've taken me anytime."

Kono gave him a look. "No offense, brah, but you're a very scary person right now." She waved a hand at him, indicating, well, all of him. "All that and you're armed to the teeth. I'd think twice about breaking into your house if I was them."

Steve crossed his arms. "But?"

"But Grace is easy pickings," Chin said bluntly. "They might risk it if she's there. She'll be safer downtown with us and our family."

As much as Steve hated to admit it, Chin had a point there. More importantly, the Kalakaua clan was going to make Grace feel safe and welcome... maybe enough so she'd start talking again. He shifted unhappily, knowing he was pulling what Danny called his Aneurism Face, but unable to help it. He didn't want to let Grace out of his sight. If she had to sleep downtown, then so should he, only his dreams had been haunted lately and his reflexes had slipped back into combat mode during the Wild Hunt and never settled back down. He tended to twitch awake at the slightest sound and he usually had his gun up, safety off, before his conscious mind was completely online. He was an accident waiting to happen and the thought of inadvertently harming civilians or, worse, _Grace_ , made him sick to his stomach.

"We could sleep at headquarters," he offered, not liking the compromise but figuring he might not react quite as violently to Chin and Kono. He knew them well enough to recognize them even in that critical second between sleep and full awareness. He hoped so, anyway.

"Sure." Chin nodded, clearly not happy either but willing to negotiate. "Might be a tight fit though. The leathernecks moved in today."

Crap. He'd forgotten about that. The military bases that had made it through the Wild Hunt had turned into refugee camps chock full of terrified civilians. Governor Denning had offered to let a contingent of Marines bunk in the city's law enforcement offices both to relieve the military bases and to pad the severely decimated ranks of Honolulu's police force. The task force headquarters was among the chosen locations.

A bunch of trigger-happy Marines and a sleep-deprived, somewhat unstable Navy SEAL sharing quarters seemed like an even worse idea than the family gathering thing.

"You watch her," he ordered grimly. "You stick with her. Don't leave her alone for a _minute_ , you hear me?"

"We won't," Kono promised. She pulled Grace closer to her protectively. "She'll be safe with us, Steve. I swear."

What could he do? He hugged Grace, squeezed her tight, and almost broke and went with her anyway when she hid her face against his neck and sobbed out a soft, forlorn sound of wordless heartbreak. Only the thought of her getting caught in the crossfire if he fucked up made him pull back eventually. He told her to be a good girl and that he'd see her tomorrow, and then he let her go.

* * *

The house was dark when Steve unlocked the front door and flipping the light switch did absolutely nothing to change that. Awesome. Looked like the power was out again. With all the damage done and the death toll among technicians, it was going to take a while before electricity became something to take for granted again.

Steve locked the door behind him and engaged the additional deadbolts he'd installed then started his nightly ritual of checking the house for unwanted guests. He started in the basement, because it was the most obvious hiding spot for creatures that thrived in the dark and because it scared him the most. He'd always hated to go down there, even (or maybe especially) when he'd been a kid. It always smelled like something was rotting in the walls, a brackish, pervasive odor that made him think of sunken ships and bloated corpses. His father had never gotten around to installing proper lighting, so as long as Steve could remember, the room had been dimly lit by a naked light bulb that tended to fizz out at the worst possible moments. He'd intended to change that when he'd moved in after his father's death, but somehow he'd always been busy... and to be honest, he hadn't seen a reason to walk down those steps before the Hunt had changed everything.

He was a grown man now, an elite soldier, and he'd seen much worse than his father's old basement, but every damn time he crossed the threshold, his skin broke out in goose bumps and his grip on his gun tightened like he was about to march right into the thick of the Wild Hunt. The wooden stairs creaked softly when he moved down into the darkness, the beam of his flashlight seeming to create more shadows than it banished. He always half expected a clawed hand to shoot out from between the slats of the uneven steps and grab his ankle, pull him down into the darkness, and he always kept his back to the wall even on the stairs. He made it down and breathed out slowly, deeply. When he took his next breath, it filled his nose with that moist, distinctive basement smell, made him grimace slightly in disgust.

They liked to hide in the darkest corners, under old blankets and on top of storage shelves; they liked to cling to the ceiling with long, curved claws, or to the underside of stairs. Their skin came in every shade from fish-belly white to graveyard black; some of them could camouflage like chameleons, melt into the background until only the cat-yellow or rat-red of their eyes betrayed their position. They smelled a little like the basement, like damp earth and putrid seawater.

Steve knew that if something had been shifted around, if his skin prickled with the sensation of being watched, those were indications he wasn't alone. When he'd moved back into the house, one of Them had been waiting in the basement. That was how Steve had learned to check the ceiling before he ventured into a room. Since then, he'd caught a changeling that had tried to gut him and three oversized rats that had led him on a merry chase before he'd cornered and disposed of them.

He was thorough in his search, because the last thing he wanted was to have one of these things at his back. No matter how badly he wanted to turn around and flee upstairs, driven by a fear so primal not even SEAL training had been able to pound it out of him, Steve forced himself to be systematic. There was nothing behind the stairs, nothing between the stacks of rotting books his father had piled in the right-hand corner. The doors to his mother's old wardrobe still stood open like he'd left them. He inched closer warily, gun at the ready, to check between and behind the old dresses dangling limply from their hangers. He should've dragged all this stuff outside and burned it, emptied the room, but that would've taken time he didn't have, not with Danny still missing.

Nothing was hiding in the wardrobe. Nothing was hiding on top of or under the wardrobe. Nothing was clinging to the back of his father's moldy punching bag. The toys in the left-hand corner were untouched, still balanced precariously on top of each other. Mary's one-eyed baby doll looked like it was sneering at him from where it was perched on his GI Joe's face. His parents' old surfboards leaned against the wall and each other, listing to the side, their formerly bright colors faded and scratched. He shone the flashlight into the gap between them and the wall, but nothing jumped out at him.

Steve glanced around once more, just to be on the safe side, then slowly made his way back up the stairs, listening behind even as he focused on the exit ahead. He stopped halfway up, frowned. The door looked like it might be open a little bit wider than he'd left it, but he couldn't have sworn to it. He hadn't heard the telltale squeak of the hinges, but that was the thing about the basement door – if you knew how to handle it, it didn't creak.

Extremely wary now, Steve started moving again, his gun hand rock-steady and his face grim. If something was in his house, it was going to regret it. He kicked the door open gently and slipped through quickly, checking left, right, above. Nothing.

He did a sweep of the house, kitchen to attic, adrenaline and brutal training keeping his hands steady the entire time and his guard up even when it seemed like everything was fine. He could feel that prickle on his skin, at the back of his neck, the way every hair on his body seemed to stand on end. He was almost certain he wasn't alone, but he didn't find a hint of an intruder, not even when he checked the whole place again, varying his search pattern. He went so far as to put down his gun on the living room table and move away from it, trying to lure out the enemy, but either the fucker didn't fall for it or there really was nothing there.

Maybe he was getting paranoid. He'd been burning the candle at both ends for well over a month now and he knew – hated to admit it, but _knew_ – that he was running on fumes. He was so damn tired all the time, exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally. He wanted to sleep for a year, but he wanted Danny more. He just... he wanted _Danno_.

He wanted his partner back.

Please.

* * *

Eventually, he gave up. He walked back upstairs into his bedroom, stripped off the body armor and peeled off his sweaty, dirty clothes. He was still bruised from his last encounter with a changeling, dark, fist-sized discolorations that covered most of his right flank and belly. They liked to go for the soft parts and rarely realized they couldn't punch or claw through the Kevlar. Good thing, too. They had too many advantages as it was.

He kicked the clothes into the laundry corner and padded barefoot into the bathroom, lighting a candle in an old-fashioned storm lamp as he went. No electricity meant no water heater, but it was warm enough that he didn't care. He stepped into the shower and pulled the glass doors shut behind him. He'd used to like showering, but the candlelight flickering behind the patterned glass made the shadows come alive and created an illusion of movement all around him that really didn't help him relax. He waited a moment before turning on the shower, straining his hearing, waiting for an attack that didn't come.

 _You're losing it_ , he thought and then forced himself to stop thinking and turned his head into the clear cascade of water. He washed quickly, closing his eyes when he squeezed out the last dollop of Danny's shampoo into his hand. As he stroked soapy fingers through his hair and smelled the familiar scent, it felt like Danny was right there with him, a silent, familiar presence in the dark room. He imagined he could feel a cool draft from the bathroom door, the heavy weight of an appreciative gaze on his skin through the glass enclosure.

The candle flickered and Steve's eyes blinked open briefly and for a second, just for a second, he thought he saw a shadow move outside. He froze, tension seeping back in, and tilted his head to the side. His right hand inched closer to the machete in its waterproof sheath he kept in the shower stall. The candle flame flickered again. Fingers curled lightly around the ribbed grip of his weapon, Steve slid the glass doors open a bit and looked out.

The room was empty.

It didn't matter. What little peace he'd found was gone. Steve finished washing quickly, turned off the water, and then stood dripping and still in the shower stall and listened. The wind whispered through the gaps in the porch railing, tapped leaves and small branches against the windows. The house settled and sighed, well-known wooden creaks and groans that still managed to make gooseflesh rise on his damp skin.

Steve toweled himself off hastily, uncomfortably aware again that he was alone in this house that no longer felt like home. Nobody to watch his back, nobody to guard his sleep. Fuck it. He was not going to freak out about this. He was exhausted, his heart aching because he might've found Grace but not Danny, and this was officially a weird night. So he forced himself to dry his hair, brush his teeth, shave, and take a piss before he walked back to his bedroom and he did _not_ grab his gun and make another sweep of the house. Instead, he slipped between the sheets naked and closed his eyes.

He was convinced it would take him forever to fall asleep, but he was out like a light the moment his head hit the pillow. He dreamed of Danny.

* * *

Steve woke with a start, unsure what had spooked him so badly at first, and then the weight registered, the way the mattress was dipping, the press of another body way within the boundaries of his personal space.

Someone... some _thing_... was in bed with him.

He'd left his gun within easy reach on the nightstand and a knife under his pillow, but one look and careful slide of his hand let him know both were gone. He kept a stiletto between the mattress and the bed frame, but he'd have to move closer to the edge to reach it.

"Don't," a familiar voice rumbled behind him.

Steve's heart stuttered in his chest. "Danny?"

He tried to turn around, but Danny's voice stopped him.

" _Don't_."

Hard. Insistent. A definite undertone of, _turn around and I'll be gone_ , in that one word. Danny had always been able to pack a lot of information into his tone and Steve didn't like what he was hearing right then. He didn't like the lack of warmth behind him either. Usually, Danny gave off heat like a furry little furnace, something that must've come in handy during the cold Jersey winters but not so much in Hawai'i. Steve should've been feeling Danny's warmth against his back even though they weren't quite touching, but he didn't. He should've been smelling sweat and musk, hair gel, maybe the remnants of Danny's coconut-scented sunscreen, but the only thing Steve's nose did catch was a faint whiff of that damn basement smell.

No.

His stomach twisted painfully.

 _No_.

"When?" he asked, barely able to force out the words. Tears were welling up in his eyes, hot and unexpected.

 _No. No, no, no. Please, no._

Tears were for the dead.

"We never made it out of the city." Danny sighed a little, shifted closer. "I hid Grace, led them away, but they caught me. I'm sorry, Steve. They caught me."

The tears spilled over then, a rush of warmth that blurred his sight. He didn't even care. He didn't want to see. He swallowed down a sob, fought to keep his voice steady.

"Did it... did it hurt?"

Of course it had hurt. There was no easy way to turn into a changeling, no sweet kiss of death. It was the people who'd almost died who changed sometimes, the ones who'd been torn open, chewed up, raped, and who'd somehow, against all odds, managed to hang on, claw their way back from the brink of death and sometimes from beyond.

Danny huffed out a breath and the smell of seawater and gore grew stronger. "Yes, Steven. It hurt. What, you want details? You want- you want a list of what they did to me? I wasn't fun, okay? It hurt, I screamed, I think I wet myself - not that there's any shame in that under the circumstances."

The mattress bounced a little and Steve could feel the soft rush of displaced air against his bare skin. Danny must've been waving his hands around again and that mental image was enough to break Steve completely. He shuddered so hard the bed frame rattled, tried to stop his body's reaction, couldn't. Couldn't breathe, couldn't see, couldn't think.

Danny. Oh God. _Danny._

"Hey. Hey, hey, Steve! Jesus, what-"

The hand that touched his shoulder felt like Danny's hand and didn't. The skin was different, smoother, tougher, and cooler. Room temperature. Because Danny... Danny wasn't... Danny had been...

He knew what They did to their victims. He'd seen it happen and he'd seen the aftermath. He'd had nightmares about it, but even in his worst dreams, his mind had never put Danny's face on any of the bodies. He hadn't been able to go there, not even in his sleep. Even in his worst case scenarios, Danny had always found a way to end it before they could do that to him. He'd been fooling himself.

Steve was vaguely aware that he was curling in on himself, hugging his middle like he was trying to hold in his guts. Grief and terror were ripping him open from the inside, threatening to destroy what little there was left of his sanity. He'd failed. He hadn't been there and Danny had paid the price. Whatever Danny was going to do to him, he deserved it and worse.

"Stop it," Danny growled, closer now, pressed against the curve of Steve's back. The smell of brackish water and damp earth was everywhere. "Steve, don't- don't-" He wrapped an arm around Steve's middle, mindful of the bruises. "God, you're shaking. You're a damn SEAL, babe, you can't just fall apart like that! Isn't there some kind of rule about that? Stop, all right? Just stop, please. I can't- Are you crying? Jesus Christ. You're crying." He pressed his face against Steve's neck then and Steve waited for the first bite, that first pain, but Danny just nuzzled closer and wrapped around him as well as he could, the little spoon trying to curl around the big spoon. "It's all right, babe," Danny murmured, rocking them a bit like he was trying to soothe Grace, "it's not so bad. It's not so bad at all. At least I still have all my parts."

As if Steve had needed the reminder that They liked to castrate their male victims. They'd done it a lot to soldiers and police officers. Half of Steve's former SEAL team had died this way. Nausea dried his tears, made him swallow thickly with the effort not to throw up at the idea of Danny going through something like that.

Danny noticed, of course, and groaned in what sounded oddly like sympathy. "Sorry. Sorry. I didn't mean it like that. Damn it, McGarrett, this was not how this was supposed to go," he muttered, pulling Steve tighter against him, mercifully without pressing against Steve's churning stomach. "This was supposed to be a dignified goodbye. I was gonna do the creepy stalker thing and watch you sleep and then I was gonna be gone, no fuss, no-"

The thought of Danny leaving again was too much. Steve uncoiled and twisted around quick as a snake, arms and legs wrapping around Danny like steel-bands. "Don't," he rasped, his voice so brittle he barely recognized it himself. "Don't leave."

He couldn't take that. Anything but that.

"I kind of have to," Danny said, but gently, his tone threaded through with hints of sadness, of grief. "Look at me, Steve. Look at this."

Reluctantly – and careful not to ease his grip lest this was a trick to make him let go – Steve drew back a little and looked. There might've been yellow eyes instead of blue now and... changes... but Steve barely registered them. The only thing he saw was the one thing that mattered.

"Danno."

It was a reverent little sigh, relief, joy, and devotion wrapped in a gossamer thread of sound.

Danny's wary eyes widened at whatever he saw in Steve's and suddenly it was Danny who was clutching Steve to him, every pretense of distance gone. Speechless for once, but talking volumes with his hands and his hungry kisses. He tasted salty like the sea, coppery like old blood, bitter like ground bones. Steve didn't give a damn.

He pulled Danny on top of him, let the sturdy weight press him down, dug desperate fingers into smooth changeling skin to draw Danny closer, and when that deadly mouth latched on to the vulnerable skin over his jugular, Steve lifted his chin and offered his throat with a smile.

 

 **Epilogue**

Later, Steve made coffee neither of them would drink and wondered how long it would take him to clear out the basement so Danny wouldn't have to sleep buried in the sand under the sea again. It could only be a temporary solution, of course. They'd have to move somewhere where the nights weren't quite so short. Somewhere not so full of ghosts and memories. Alaska should do fine, he thought. Well, during the winter, anyway. He'd think of something. He'd have to check out schools for Grace, find a realtor, talk to Chin and Kono, find a pilot who could be bribed to fly out a casket-sized box... he needed to make a list. Or several. He didn't know how long Danny could go without feeding, he didn't even know _how_ to feed Danny yet, not that it mattered. He'd do whatever was necessary to keep Danny in his life.

Which reminded him...

"What happened to the ones that changed you?" he asked, because if they were still out there, that was something he'd have to finish before they could leave. He had a nice little paring knife that should do fine for starters and a few ideas as to where to go from there.

Danny ducked his head, looking mortified. "I ate them," he confessed.

Steve blinked. "You what?"

Danny glared up at him, yellow eyes gleaming. "I fucking _ate_ them, okay? I was hungry, Steve. I'm always hungry now; it's not a fun condition, all right? What was I supposed to do, huh? Chew on the general populace? I'm a cop! I can't munch on people, that'd be unethical!"

"So you ate... Them."

Wow. This was better than anything Steve could've come up with, better even than the blowtorch thing.

Danny, unaware of Steve's honest admiration, crossed his arms defensively. "Yes. Yes, I did. You gonna make something of it?"

"You turned on Them... and you ate them."

One hand escaped the guarded posture to flap irritably. "Most of them. They're bigger than they look."

Appreciation gave way to morbid fascination. "What do they taste like?"

Danny stared at him.

"Chicken," he deadpanned, and then he sat there in his customary place in Steve's kitchen and shook his head in exasperation while Steve laughed until he cried.

 

  
**The End**

October 31, 2011

**Author's Note:**

> You can also read this at [_LiveJournal_](http://jaguarcaine.livejournal.com/29290.html).


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